“It is truly right and just, with ardent love of mind and heart and with devoted service of our voice, to acclaim our Good invisible, the almighty Father, and Jesus Christ, our Lord, his Son, his Only Begotten.

Who for our sake paid Adam’s debt to the eternal Father, and, pouring out his own dear Blood, wiped clean the record of our ancient sinfulness.

These then are the feasts of Passover, in which is slain the Lamb, the one true Lamb, whose Blood anoints the door-posts of believers.

This is the night, when once you led our forebears, Israel’s children, from slavery in Egypt and made them pass dry shod through the Red Sea.

This is the night that with a pillar of fire banished the darkness of sin.

This is the night that even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy ones.

This is the night, when Christ broke the prison bars of death, and rose victorious from the underworld. Our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed.

O wonder of your humble care for us! O love, O charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!”

This was a night of vigil for the LORD,
as he led them out of the land of Egypt;
so on this same night
all the children of Israel must keep a vigil for the LORD
throughout their generations.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever;
Who remembered us in our abjection,
for his mercy endures forever;
And freed us from our foes,
for his mercy endures forever.

In the Magnificat, our Lady says of God, “He scatters the proud in their conceit. He casts down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.” How many times in history have we seen just the opposite? A new regime comes to power. They want only the strong to survive so they crush the weak. Christianity, from the beginning, did just the opposite and has lasted longer than any of these tyrannical movements. Matthew quotes from Isaiah and applies to Jesus the saying, “A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench.” Jesus doesn’t crush the bruised; he heals them. He doesn’t snuff out the smoldering; he sets them on fire.

“Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God” (1 Cor. 1:26-29).

“This is the night of which it is written; The night shall be as bright as day, dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness. The sanctifying power of this night dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.

May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star: the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son, who, coming back from death’s domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”

(The quoted material is from the Exultet, the Easter Proclamation)